Chapter 2 Reflection-

After taking a trip back in history to learn about the advancements of type, chapter two focuses more on the elements that make up letter forms and text. Though it's always interesting to learn about the detailed history behind something as common as text, I found chapter two to be more interesting because a lot of the concepts were new to me. From the very beginning of the chapter I was engaged in new terminology that make up specific letterforms. One of my new favorite parts of a letter form I learned about from this sections was the spine. From the text, I learned that the spine is the, "central stroke of a the letter s" (Carter 33.) I think its really interesting how something so specific has its own name, and that so many parts of letter forms are named after parts from other living things bodies.  Arm, ear, shoulder, tail, eye, and hairline are all parts of letter forms, but I think its super funny that to a person who doesn't understand typography would have no idea.  Body part or part of a letter form, what a fun game to play with your friends.

Other sections of this chapter that I found really interesting were the 'optical relationships within a font' and the 'unity of design in the type font.' After or discussion in class about dyslexia and new fonts that are being released to help dyslexic readers, I must have had this concept on my mind when reading. The text discussed the importance of fonts achieving an overall harmonious appearance. Not only do details such as letting or kerning impact the visual harmony of a text, but they along with many other design factors influence its readability. Another component that contributes to the harmony of a font, which may be overlooked is the unity of a typeface. While, most people can recognize the elements of repetition employed in popular fonts among letters, the graphic chart indicating repetitions through a font were helpful for me to understand the roles of unity and repetition in a given font.